Cast Additions To ‘The To Do List’ and ‘Parker’

Nobody in their right mind thought that the upcoming Aubrey Plaza comedy The Hand Job would be able to keep its title if it wanted to get wide distribution, so it’s not a surprise that it’s going by a new, less explicit name, The To Do List. ThePlaylist has learned of two additions to the newly-titled movie’s cast, and they’re none other than Clark Gregg and Rachel Bilson. Exact details of their roles haven’t been given out, but they suspect that the former will be playing Plaza‘s father, while the latter is appearing as her sister. Those were apparently the two major roles that still needed to be cast, so that prediction makes sense to me.

The movie follows a young, recent high school graduate who has no prior sexual experience, which leads to her deciding to make a list of sex activities that she can complete before going off to college. The cast is pretty massive, as it also includes Bill Hader, D.C. Pierson, Donald Glover, Alia Shawkat, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Johnny Simmons, Mae Whitman, Dominic Dierkes, Connie Britton, and Scott Porter.

Written and directed by Hader‘s wife, Maggie Carey, it’s set to begin filming this summer, with a release of 2012 being most people’s guess. That slate is impressive enough, but I really look forward to seeing them do this story onscreen. You already know that it’s going to be filthy, but having all these people involved pretty much guarantees that it will also be hilarious.

There have also been actors added to the cast of Taylor Hackford‘s Parker, which is set to have Jason Statham take on the famous character created by novelist Donald E. Westlake. Not a character or author you may know immediately, but his novel The Hunter has been adapted into films a few times before, most notably with Lee Marvin in Point Blank and Mel Gibson in Payback. The cast of this new adaptation also includes Jennifer Lopez, but the wide number of characters still need to have actors put in their place

Now, Variety (via GordonandtheWhale) is letting us know that Wendell Pierce and Clifton Collins Jr. are also onboard. Pierce was on The Wire for its entire five-season run, and has a role in David Simon‘s latest show, Treme. Collins Jr. is a character actor who, perhaps most famously, had a pivotal role in Capote, and also played a villain in Star Trek. They don’t report on who they’ll be playing, but what really matters is that both are talented actors. They have an everyman kind of quality to them, but at the same time, I suspect that they’ll end up playing villains.

Not only is this because they’re the next line of actors to be cast after the two leads, but it’s also due to the fact that nobody in this story is really a “good guy.” Kind of a broad guess, but that’s just how the story goes. FilmDistrict is distributing, with the script comes from Black Swan co-writer John J. McLaughlin, and it sounds like a promising film. I don’t know how They don’t report on who they’ll be playing, but what really matters is that both are talented actors. I don’t know how Statham will handle Parker, a character much different from his typical roles, but this promises that he’ll get to kick some ass, and I always look forward to that.

Are you excited for either project? What do you think about either piece of casting news?